Spring is here and it’s time for the latest issue of Factor magazine, the mammoth quarterly digital magazine on all things future. Available to read on any device for free, it’s your go-to destination for serious thought, and the occasional bout of silliness, about the world of tomorrow.

With 33 pages of content there is a huge range of topics to read and explore, and listing every single one here would be a bit silly. Instead, here’s our pick of the five must-read articles that every future fan needs to check out.

Blockchain seems to be finding its way into everything at the moment, and the music industry is no different. Which is why in this issue we speak to Choon, the company using the technology to transform the music industry, and pay artists better in the process. Are we entering the post-record label age? Quite possibly.

In what is probably the silliest article in this issue, we ponder a reality where Elon Musk really does create a zombie apocalypse in order to sell Boring Company flamethrowers. Why would he do such a thing? How would it turn out? And how would Musk create zombie anyway? All these questions are (sort of) answered.

Bees are vanishing but crops still need to be pollinated, lest we see a serious impact on our global food supplies. In this serenely presented article we consider the pros and cons of supplementing bees with robotic doppelgangers. Yes, this will bring back memories of a certain Black Mirror episode.

In this animated spectacular, we take you on a trip to the future, to look at what travelling could be like in a decade. From passenger drones to driverless cars and hyperloop to supersonic planes, there will be a lot of ways to travel, some of which will have a serious impact on how we live.

Self-improvement is one of the universal goals of humanity, so why not make our brains better? In a mind-blowing exploration of how we could advance ourselves, we hear from Kernel’s Bryan Johnson about the company’s cognitive enhancement plans.

We’ve been working towards this for a long, long time: this is how we’ve always wanted the magazine to look, and we’re so happy to share this with you. It can be viewed on any web browser, on anything from a mobile to a monster PC, and if you’re on a desktop or laptop, click the button in the bottom right-hand corner for the ultimate shiny reading experience. A digital magazine has never looked this good. Probably.

Unfortunately that means no more iPad app, but as you can easily read the magazine from an iPad web browser, we hope you’ll agree that what we’ve gained is so much better than what’s been lost.

So anyway, here it is: the Winter 2017 issue of Factor, the first issue of the quarterly version of the magazine.

In case any of you are worrying about us publishing the magazine quarterly, trust us you don’t need to. We’ve produced the biggest issue of Factor ever, so packed with futuristic awesomeness, that we’ve had to divide it into three sections: Today, Tomorrow and Beyond.

Take a look, and if you like what you see and read, please share the magazine with your friends, or tell us what you think. This is a completely free magazine, with not an ad in sight, so it’s always good to know that it’s worth the effort.